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Notes from the IBM Systems Electronic Support team.
Disclaimer: The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of each author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management

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Need to see what type of disk controller, or network adapter shipped with your box so you can find updates for them. Perhaps you want to know how many or what type of processors or hard drives it shipped with. The Systems support site has two ways to find what was put into your System x and BladeCenter machine when it was manufactured. This information is useful when looking for drivers and firmware, as well as other uses, such as looking for upgrades, service parts etc. Product description This is first and the quickest way to... [More]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth many
times that amount. For our Storwize clients, we're pleased that we can
now offer Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU) videos to help you with some
of your maintenance tasks. Our education group has produced a number of
CRU videos and posted them on YouTube and Youku, creating channels for
IBM Storwize V7000, IBM Storwize V3700, and IBM Flex System V7000.
We've also sent out Notifications to raise awareness of the videos. You
can see them here. IBM Storwize V7000... [More]

In addition to the helps for using the Fix Level Recommendation Tool
(FLRT) that you can find on the FLRT web site, you can now get help in a
new video. This YouTube video demonstrates the basics of using FLRT and
also shows how to use new features, such as getting a report for
multiple LPARs and using a saved inventory file to populate the fields
on the FLRT input page. If you haven't used the latest FLRT yet, visit the site and check it out: Fix Level Recommendation Tool And follow @IBM_FLRT for news of FLRT updates and... [More]

Did
you know that you can decide which modules appear on each of the
Support Portal pages? When you sign in you can customize each page by
removing, adding, and rearranging the modules in the middle of the page. First, sign in to the IBM Support Portal using your IBM Web ID. To remove, move, or resize a module already on the page, use the controls in the title bar of the module. The Customize menu on the right side of the page gives you the option to select other modules for the current page. ... [More]

You
may use the search within IBM Support Portal, designed to be the
most efficient search for support related information on ibm.com. The information that is not relevant to your search is eliminated
from search results because the scope of your search is limited by
default to only the specific products, solutions, and services that
you have configured and enabled within Support Portal, making it
faster and easier to find the critical piece of information you
want. You may also search within all of the Support and... [More]

Want to find the most recent discussion threads related to your IBM product? Looking for a forum or user group? Tired of going to multiple websites? Then check out the enhancements we've made to the Communities page on the IBM Support Portal. The Recent community activity module aggregates discussion threads and article posts from multiple channels into one easy-to-find location. This new module provides a single view of social media activity across blogs, Twitter, forums, and other channels for your selected products, giving you a quick view... [More]

Today I will focus on how to best use SR ( Service Request ) to report STG Software problems to the IBM support organization. To
get the most out of SR you should understand how to find the help
information needed to accomplish your task of opening a new service
request, or viewing existing service requests. The starting point for
any questions for SR should be the “ Help ”
tab which will take you to an extensive list of help pages. These pages
describe how to access SR, using SR, how to manage your SR
accounts/customer numbers,... [More]

The IBM Electronic Support user experience team is currently recruiting clients to participate in design reviews and usability testing of future enhancements to IBM Support Portal, Fix Central, My notifications, Service Request, and other online tools. There are several opportunities to share your ideas and provide feedback: Drive requirements for the future The IBM Electronic Support Client Advisory Panel meets every other month to focus on a specific topic related to electronic support. Sessions in 2012 covered Support Portal Adviser,... [More]

IBM FLRT evolved to its present form in part because the development team listened to what FLRT users wanted. Then: A little history In 2006, IBM FLRT (pronounced “flirt”), the Fix Level Recommendations
Tool, began providing fix level and cross-product compatibility
recommendations for IBM Power servers for system firmware, HMC, AIX,
VIOS and a few High Performance Computing (HPC) products. Input of
product levels at FLRT's web-based interface produced a recommendations
report. The new FLRT team thought Power Systems... [More]

Rating Content Page ratings indicate the value placed on a document by other users and can help guide you to especially useful content. By rating a document, your evaluation of the document becomes part of this guidance to others. You can specify - on a five star scale - the quality and helpfulness of a document. Additionally, you can view the number of ratings made for a particular document and the average of those ratings. For example, this page has been rated 81 times and it has an average rating of 3 - 1/2. By rating content you... [More]